In the mid-1980s, I was working on the line at a small Minnesota FBO/flight school and flying when my meager income would allow. Early on in my training, my instructor was fortunate enough to find a second job flying right-seat in a North American Sabreliner Series 60. The chief pilot for this small corporate flight department also did business with the FBO where I worked, so I got to know him as well. It wasn’t long before I found myself driving out to the airport at 0400 hours to help with fueling and preparation before their early-morning departures. Since I was doing this on my own accord, I was offered a chance to ride along on various trips as “payment” for my services. The owner of the aircraft owned companies in Oklahoma and Texas as well as other business interests around the country, so at 18 years of age I was able to see various parts of the country from 41,000 feet.
On a return flight from Corpus Christi, Texas, to St. Paul one evening, I was sitting on the meager jumpseat provided at the entrance to the cockpit — not an easy feat considering I am 6 feet 4 inches and was about 270 pounds at the time. Due to size constraints, I had to straddle the seat in a modified split with one leg in the cockpit and the other facing the opposite direction toward the door. As I watched the miles on the DME tick by at a steady pace, the weather radar started painting some red at its maximum effective range. It wasn’t long before the crew members were checking weather and fine-tuning the radar. I overheard them discussing the possibility of heavy precipitation creating a false return and making the storm look larger then it really was. It appeared this large storm was centered over Missouri and Iowa and was right in our path. Due to the somewhat limited range of the turbojet-equipped Sabreliner, they were discussing whether they would try to stay high over the top of the storm and descend rapidly after clearing it, or divert to Chicago, fuel and continue on to St. Paul.
